There Is Dignity in ALL Labor! - CLC @ MLK Day

Nashville, TN – This year’s march to commemorate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. began as workers from across middle Tennessee joined faith leaders and labor organizers to call attention to the growing gap between the struggling and the wealthy. Workers like Aaliyah Morris, who works for $7.35 an hour, have full time jobs but still must rely on food stamps to feed their families called on employers and elected officials to honor Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy by recommitting to shared prosperity and the rights of workers.

“These workers are demanding the dignity that Dr. King saw in all labor,” said Vonda McDaniel, president of the Central Labor Council of Nashville and Middle Tennessee. “People of faith, young organizers, and worker centers are bringing new life to the struggle for civil rights and worker rights in Tennessee.”

In 2013, several organizing campaigns across different industries began bringing workers issues into the public eye. In 2014, organizers predict, these will bear fruit in the form of unionized work places, wages recovered from theft by employers, and local union apprentices working on large public projects.

“Anywhere you look on the Nashville skyline you see cranes, but local workers are not truly sharing in this prosperity,” said LiUNA organizer Ashford Hughes, “To close the wage gap, we must close the skills gap by hiring locally trained workers on these projects, and ending wage theft by temp services.”

UAW civil rights representative Tom Savage was present to support workers at Nissan’s Smyrna plant: ““Martin Luther King gave his life while supporting the right of workers to organize a union. For Nissan workers, Dr. King’s struggle continues today.”

With that, the celebration of the federal holiday honoring the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on his 85th birthday began with hundreds of workers marching from Jefferson Street Missionary Baptist Church.